


What is Love

by Handoodlenah



Category: Original Work
Genre: Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21749863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Handoodlenah/pseuds/Handoodlenah
Summary: Someone's Journey
Kudos: 2





	What is Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is an intro for my creative writing class. All of this is fictional.

I don’t know what love is.  
Now don’t take this statement the wrong way. I understand the idea of love. I understand that love is an emotion that people express when they feel strongly towards another person. I understand that love is something most people would refer to as ‘tangible’ and as something that you just know is there. I’ve just never experienced love before.  
When I was younger, my parents weren't really there. It’s not that they were bad parents or neglectful, they just weren't there. Even in my earliest memories I remember being alone. I was normally with a sitter or at a daycare as both my parents worked. It wasn’t bad per say, it just was how life was for me.  
Around five I started elementary school. My class was, nicely put, the underdog class. You know how in every school there is one class that you intuitively know everyone in that class will fail? A group of students that have no chance at achieving anything more than the base minimum? That was my class.  
It was less visible in my kindergarten class but it was still there. Most of the boys in that class were already more obsessed with girls than with their work, which might not sound bad at first, until you realize that became the norm for the next eight years. The girls were obsessed with their vanity, more so than even the pop stars of the time were.  
Kindergarten was the start of what would turn into the most tedious and monotonous routine that I would ever find myself engaged in. I’d get up and start getting ready for elementary school at 6. My mom and dad would already have left for work and I’d be left to cook for myself and dress myself. If I was lucky my parents would have remembered to call for a sitter and she’d normally be arriving as I made my way into the kitchen.  
I’d leave for school around 7. I always walked. Now here is something you have to understand, my neighborhood was a small one. Our town only had a hundred or so residents and because of this, everybody knew everyone. My town was one of the safest ones in my state and my parents worked on behalf of the town. These two facts made it possible for me and my parents to live the way we did.  
My school was not far from my house. I’d arrive around 8 and go to my class. I believe I had Ms. James as my teacher that year. I really don’t miss her. She was always asking about my parents and I always seemed to say or do something wrong around her. Thinking back I will say I was a bit messed up compared to the other kids in that class, but not weird enough to warrant the type of attention I got from her.  
School got off at 2:30 each day. I’d always try to hurry home and meet my parents before they went out for their night-shift. There were days I was fast enough I’d catch them. The majority of the time, however, I was too late and came home to either an empty house or a sitter. When I did miss them there was always a hand-cooked meal on the table and either a recorder or a note on the table from them telling me how much they loved me and how glad they were to see me succeeding.  
Now you may also be wondering how I stayed with my parents. Most of you are probably thinking that my parents should have lost custody of me, that I shouldn’t have been allowed to have such a ‘horrible’ upbringing. It wasn’t like my parents weren't involved with my life. They both worked their hardest to keep our life the way it was and I always had shelter and food. All of my paperwork was always done and my parents had made it very easy for me to call a personal tutor if I had trouble in school. I was only without a sitter because they knew I didn’t like having one. At that point in my life, I can honestly say I believed the lie that my parents cared what happened to me and if I needed the help, I’d get it. At this time though I was fine without it, I was fine with being on my own.  
Everything started to downhill around 5th grade. I was around eleven at the time and had been going about my life like normal. I didn’t have many friends and spent most of my time alone or on the countless electronics scattered around my house. My mom had been getting less and less hours at work and had started spending time at the local bars to fill the blank space.  
Our town had grown as well. In the six years I had been at school our population had skyrocketed from a measly hundred people to roughly two thousand. This had made jobs a lot harder to find and a lot harder to keep, and my mom was a victim of this new growth in workforce.  
My twelfth birthday was when, pardon my language, shit hit the fan. My mom had been laid off from her job and in the midst of the emotions that had caused she tried to end herself. It had been a bloody mess when my dad came home and found her. This was the turning point for what I had thought was a perfectly normal life.  
After her attempt, my parents wouldn’t stop arguing. One night it would be about my well-being, the next would be about our financial situation, and the one after that would be complete nonsense.  
Life became much more difficult for me once my parents started fighting. I had grown up to a quiet house, used to spending my time alone with the only sounds being ones I created and controlled. Now however, that was not the case. When both my parents were home my house sounded like a rock concert gone wrong. All you could hear was the screaming match in what once was my living room.  
When I was home with just mom she was always crying. This was when the “neglect” and “abuse” actually started. She’d stay in the living room, bawling her eyes out without a care for me. Most of these days ended with her passed out on the couch, an empty bottle at her feet. My father stopped coming home around this time as well. When he did come home it was closer to 4 in the morning and he was more smashed than mom was.  
Over the first 6 months of my fifth grade year my parents went from hard working but distant to unemployed and hateful, with me being caught in the middle. Both had lost their jobs due to the influx of younger workers and were living off stored away money.  
My seventh grade summer was the first time I actually ran away. Mom had come home and had downed a bottle of vodka before flopping down onto the couch. Dad had come home not moments later, his eyes blazing with a fury I’d never seen before.  
He shouted at my mom to stand up. As soon as she stood he grabbed her arm and slammed her against the living room wall. Mom, who had been out of it not minutes before, came forcefully back to reality. She had tried to speak but my father pulled her head back and slammed it into the wall again, screaming at her to shut up and that he was done with her shit. It was quiet for a moment and a wave of calmness seemed to wash over him. He looked at me and told me to leave while his hands went and started removing his belt. I remember asking why and his words have stuck with me forever. He said, and I quote, “Because mommy needs to be taught a lesson about what happens to whores.” I have never seen anyone since who has scared me as much as my father did in that moment. I will never forget the look of pure horror my mom gave me from where she was held, her eyes silently pleading with me to help her.  
I would love to tell you that I ran and told the proper authorities, or better yet saved my mother and beat the bad man all by myself. That wasn’t what happened. I just ran. I ran from that house and out onto our street. Past our street and onto our block. I ran past my school and past my old sitters house and just kept running. I had no clue where I was going I just knew I was scared and wanted away, so I ran.  
I have no idea how long I was running, I just kept running until I couldn’t run anymore. I don’t remember where my body finally gave out, I just remember collapsing. I have no idea how long I laid there for, holding myself and sobbing on the hard ground. I just know I fell asleep there, and woke up in a hospital.  
I wish I could tell you my life got better after that. I wish I could say seeing their only child lying in a hospital bed, hours after she had bolted from their house, brought my parents back to reality. It didn’t. The day I woke up on that hospital bed something inside my father snapped.  
The next months were filled with ever-increasing violence and threats, most of it directed at my mom. She quickly learned that, in this house, it was fight or die. Now another question you probably have is why my mom and dad didn’t divorce, or why they didn’t both just live in separate houses. The answer is simple, they didn’t want to. Both of them knew how bad divorce would look for both of them, especially since they had a child. Their reputation in the town would take a big hit and both valued that over theirs (and my) sanity.  
My High School Years Were the worst of my life. Starting the first few months of ninth grade I basically lived at the school. I stayed in the campus library until it closed and, if I was lucky, would be allowed to use the swings and other structures for an extra hour before having to leave for my house. I never really went home. I went to a house where screaming matches were the norm and violence was almost a staple of the building.  
By the middle of my ninth grade year both my parents were employed once again. Mom had taken up a job at a club. I never knew exactly what she did there and still have no desire to. Dad had gotten a job at the local lumber mill and made sure he was barely at the house.  
My house was still just that, a house. After the incident in seventh grade I couldn’t consider it a home. Somewhere inside me I still believed that home was where you were safe, that home was a place where you belonged. That house that my parents and I lived in wasn’t safe and it definitely wasn’t where I belonged.  
Now another common question I get when explaining this part of my life is, ‘Why was it so bad? Weren’t both your parents away at work?’ and as much as I wish that was true, it really isn’t. While yes, they were away during the day, night time was horrific.  
Both my mom and dad hated their new jobs. It was clear from the start that getting those new jobs was a bad idea. While it kept them out of the house while I was at school, by the time I got back, even if I came back early, at least one of them was there.  
Mom was the easier of the two. When she got to the house she would pass out on the couch for an hour or so. When she woke up I would get called down from my room and be forced to listen to how much my life had messed up hers and how much I cost her. She was very detailed when it came to how I was the reason she worked at a club and her, “Woe is me. I am nothing more than a lowly stripper!” speeches.  
After she had finished degrading and belittling me she often asked for either vodka or tequila. She always made sure to buy alcohol before getting back so we were never out. I lost count of how many white russians or vodka-tequila mixes I had to make just to keep her content because, if she wasn’t then I was screwed.  
If I chose not to come down when mom called, or made whatever drink she wanted wrong, or I couldn't find the drink she wanted within an unstated arbitrary time limit, or anything else I did upset her she exploded. Most often she yelled at me or threw stuff, making sure I knew how worthless and useless I was and how much better her life would have been if I was never born. If I did something that she considered horrible (in that moment because it changed every other day) she would make sure I was ‘disciplined’ for my actions, most of which resulted in bruises lasting four to five days.  
Dad was much harder to deal with, and as such I tried to stay out of the house when he was there. I even went so far as hiding in the shed some nights because of how bad he was. When he was there and I couldn’t get outside, either because it was too cold to be in the shed or I just didn’t get out the door in time, it was messy.  
Normally when he got back he’d call to my mother. She was his main target and while my mother was many things, she wasn’t a coward. She always took whatever he dished out and fought back, never once would she point him my direction and she often tried to keep him away from me. I still don’t really understand why but a part of me believes that she knew he was more likely hurt me irreparably and didn’t want that.  
I was never the receiver of my dad's physical outbursts, Mom always put herself in the way. This doesn’t mean it was easy for me. I hated listening to my parents brawl while I hid in my room. It’s often why I went to the shed when he was home, it was quiet and safe.  
Dad had always been bigger and stronger than mom. He was a 6’5” behemoth of a man and my mom was barely 5’7”. Their brawls were mostly one-sided, with dad landing most of the blows while mom was forced to block and couldn’t land a single hit. Dad also never played fair, pulling at my mom’s hair or grabbing her throat to ‘win’ the fight.  
These brawls often ended with dad leaving my mother beaten and going straight to bed. He was almost always drunk when he got home so it wasn't a surprise that he went straight to sleep. If I wasn’t inside the shed when he went to bed I'd sneak downstairs and help my mom onto the couch before making her a drink and heading to bed myself.  
In the morning I was left to help my mom into a working state before I went to school. I have never seen someone wear as much makeup as my mom did when it came to covering up her wounds and scars. She always said that ‘Coverup breeds flawlessness’ and I guess it was true because after we were finished she always looked as young and happy as she did when I was six.  
Tenth and Eleventh grade came and went in the same fashion that ninth grade had. The almost routine beatings my mother and I received and the same harassment and monotony I dealt with at school blurred together into a forgettable two years. I honestly do wish I had done more with those years, as inconsequential as they may seem.  
I Graduated top of my class, which wasn’t hard since most of my class barely passed. As soon as I was out of school I started work at the local McDonalds and moved to the nearest homeless shelter. I know it seems like quite a downgrade in terms of living conditions, but I couldn’t stand the screaming and violence any longer. I honestly would rather live with hundreds of people I don’t know than in the sparring match that was my house.  
Now another question I got from a lot of the people in the shelter, especially the staff who knew my story was why? Why didn’t I say something while I grew up through this? Why did I suffer eighteen years in that house just to run away from it all? Why had I waited so long to speak up? The answer was obvious.  
In all my years of living I never wanted another family. It may surprise you after all I went through but I never wished for another mother or father. I still don’t. My family, while broken and messy, are still my family, and I love them for that. I may be because I have always remembered the great years with my parents before they lost their minds, or some weird internal reason but I will always love them.  
This is not to say I think their actions were just, far from it actually. I think most of the things my dad did to my mom and the things mom did to me are unforgivable. I would not wish the horrors of that house and those people on my worst enemy. Those aren't the people I think of when I think of my parents, at least the image they have now is not the one I picture when I think of those I hold dear. I see my parents as they were, not as they are.  
Where am I now is of no concern anymore. I know that whatever is left of my parents is no longer here. I stayed with the shells of them out of a hope that my parents would come back and I was wrong. This is my final goodbye. One last chance to get my story out in the void of nameless victims before I leave.  
To all those who read this, thank you for your time. I greatly appreciate you reading my story and I hope that, in the future, I may meet you in whatever lies beyond.  
One last question you may have, the simplest question in the book, Who am I? My name is of no concern anymore. I am who I am, the daughter of my mother and father. I am the survivor of something horrific. I am the remains of a broken home. I am who I am and that is all that matters.  
Goodbye


End file.
